On the day of the Dublin Central byelection, Paschal Donohoe was politely sidestepping questions about who his successor in the constituency might be. Donohoe received the annual gold medal from the Library Association of Ireland (LAI) for his services to libraries in front of an invited audience at the Pearse Street Library in Dublin. He confronted the elephant in the room at the end of a questions-and-answers session hosted by Rick O’Shea, the presenter of RTÉ’s Arena programme. “It is, of course, a feeling to see an election that I’m not in. I wish all well,” he said. “I’ve been a candidate in an election and in a byelection. I loved politics and I loved being an elected politician, but I’m not a politician now and that’s all that I will say. Now I just look on.” In presenting him with the medal, LAI president Lorna Dodd said Donohoe had stood up for libraries when they came under sustained attack in 2023 from the far-right for their stand on LGBTQ rights. Paschal Donohoe (right) in conversation with broadcaster Rick O'Shea during an event at Pearse Street Library in Dublin. Photograph: Ronan McGreevy When asked by O’Shea how he felt about the situation in the United States, where libraries have drawn the wrath of the Trump administration, he demurred. “I’m a public servant and I work for countries all over the world including America. I play no role at all in commenting on politics whether it be here or in America.” Donohoe announced his departure from Irish politics last November having spent 11 years in cabinet, seven of them as either the minister for finance or the minister for public expenditure. He left to take up his role as managing director and chief knowledge officer of the World Bank based in Washington DC. O’Shea asked him what the role of chief knowledge officer entailed. Donohoe acknowledged it was a “great title”, before adding. “It’s how we convey the knowledge and expertise within the World Bank more effectively to best serve those we work with. “That includes all of the policies we work on including food, energy and infrastructure.” While he was circumspect about politics, he spoke freely and at length about his love of books. In his early twenties, Isaac Asimov, Stephen Donaldson and Philip Pullman were among the authors he read. The autobiography of former British Labour politician Denis Healey, entitled The Time of My Life, also made an impression on Donohoe. “That book got me thinking about politics. The last chapter is him making the case for public service,” he said. The young Donohoe wrote to Healey and he wrote back. Donohoe has kept the letter. He also had designs on being a writer himself and wrote many short stories in his twenties. “I used to think at one point of time I was going to be a writer,” he said. “When I fell into my twenties my creative energies ran out of steam, but they are still bubbling away. Who knows what might happen.” For many years, he has reviewed books for The Irish Times. He “labours over” each review to try to be balanced. How conscious is he of being objective about reviewing a book?“I’m really careful about that,” he said, “and I would frequently say to Martin (Doyle, Irish Times books editor), ‘I should not review that book’.“I never go near any book where my personal views or preferences would be an undue influence.“You can’t leave behind your culture, so I hardly ever review anything about Irish politics or the economy because I don’t think that’s fair to the reader or the writer.” He makes the time to read books, he says, at the end of every day. “Sometimes it might be for 10 or 15 minutes, but if you are disciplined, it’s amazing how much you can read. “Every time I’m on a train or a plane, I always have a few books. I don’t have the luxury of sitting down for hours reading a book, but I always finish off the day with a book.” Donohoe is the best-known bibliophile in Irish politics. He name-checks former taoiseach Enda Kenny and former minister for finance Michael Noonan as “great readers”. Another is the French politician Bruno Le Maire, “who is a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction”.